2Choose the axis — horizontal gives you a mirror image, vertical an upside-down reflection.
3Apply the flip, then check any text, logos or numbers in the preview, because those mirror along with everything else.
4Download the flipped ICO file.
Flip ICO FAQ
How does Flip ICO mirror the file?
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Concretely, each bitmap in the stack is mirrored on the same axis and the entries stay square and valid. You choose the axis — horizontal produces a mirror image, vertical produces an upside-down reflection — and the whole file is transformed on it.
What is the difference between flipping and rotating?
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A flip reverses the content across an axis and produces a mirror image; a rotation turns it without reversing anything. Text is the giveaway: it reads backwards after a flip and stays readable after a rotation.
Does the source format matter when flipping?
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It does. ICO is a container that holds several square bitmaps at once (16, 32, 48, 64, 128 and 256 px) so Windows and browsers can pick the size they need. That is what decides whether the mirror can be done by rewriting the file or requires decoding it first.
Anything specific to ICO to be aware of?
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Yes — an ICO is a stack of square bitmaps, not one image, so operations apply to the stack and Windows still picks whichever size it wants. Worth a moment before you flip something you cannot easily recreate.
When would I actually want to flip rather than rotate?
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Correcting a scan or a webcam capture that came out mirrored, making a symmetrical pair from a single asset, or matching the direction a subject faces to a layout. If the content contains text, logos or numbers, check the result — those mirror too.
Can I flip several files at once?
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Yes. The same axis is applied to every file in the batch, which is how you fix a whole folder of mirrored captures in one pass instead of one at a time.
What can I upload to Flip ICO?
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ICO files containing one or several sizes, plus ordinary PNG or JPG artwork if you are building an icon rather than editing one. Windows .ico and browser favicon files are the same format.
Is there a file size limit on Flip ICO?
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Yes: free accounts process images up to 25 MB each, which no icon file will ever approach — a full 16-to-256-pixel stack is typically well under 200 KB. Icons are the one part of the image family where the cap is genuinely irrelevant.
Will Flip ICO lower the quality of my ICO icons?
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The sizes stored inside an ICO are lossless bitmaps, so the pixels themselves do not degrade. What actually decides how good an icon looks is whether the size the operating system asks for exists in the stack — a 256 px entry downscaled on the fly by Windows always looks worse than a real 32 px entry.
Can I run Flip ICO on several ICO icons at once?
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Yes. Icon files are tiny, so a batch of them completes almost instantly; the round trip is dominated by the upload, not the processing.
Which sizes should the icon contain?
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16, 32 and 48 pixels cover Windows Explorer and browser tabs; 256 covers large-icon view and modern shortcuts. Keeping all of them in one file costs almost nothing and stops the operating system from having to guess.
Does Flip ICO cost anything?
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No. Flip ICO is free with no account, and the output carries no watermark — which matters more here than anywhere else, since an icon is a handful of pixels with nowhere to hide one.
